“Haven’t you had enough introspection?” asked Sony who is now based in Australia when I told him over YM that Consuelo and I were going to this psychogenetics retreat in Tagaytay on a weekend.
“This is a different one,” I say as I try not to be defensive while I searched for that file on Father Ed Fugoso’s psycho-spiritual retreat.
“ Psychogenetics is a scientific approach to understanding the influence of our parents and ancestors in our adult behavior and marital relationships. It was developed in 1992 by Anne Teachworth, my professor at Gestalt Institute of New Orleans. The retreat is a psycho-spiritual experience that will help participants to discover how under stress we regress to the child that we were and how we can cut-off ourselves from negative trans-generational patterns that are not helping in our present adult-to-adult relationships.
Single participants will be helped in choosing correctly their marital life partners and not just automatically fall for the person who will not be good for them. Through the History of Family Origin Test (also called Selection Test) they will know BEFORE and NOT AFTER how their partners will behave after marriage. “ Father Ed’s letter of invitation said.
"See, there's a twist, " and Sony seems to nod in agreement. So like clockwork on a Saturday, I was on my way to Cielo's condo in Makati by 7 AM and we were having breakfast at South Superhighway by 8 AM. We got a call from Father Ed by 9AM, and guiltily, we told him we were going to be late by 15 minutes. Turns out Father Ed was the one who was going to be late.
The Tagaytay we know is the one that has Taal Vista, Bag of Beans, etc, and retreat houses are apparently on the other side of the road. We got lost, but just in time to meet up with the group and have a taste of coffee and kutsinta. Cielo and I, by habit began our ratings.
"Father Ed, how come you don't serve brewed barako coffee anymore? Your retreatants rave about it." What a little tart I am."Ah ganun ba? SIge , bukas papagawa tayo,"
"Father, you should change the directions on your invitation. We got lost because we went all the way to Tagaytay Rotonda..." Yada yada yada. We were smart asses.
During the first day, when my tempo had not slowed down yet, Father asked permission from Consuelo and I because we wanted to start the afternoon session at 2:30 PM after a 1 hour siesta, when all others wanted to regroup at 3 PM.
“Kasi ang retreat, rest din for the body,” he explained and we acquiesced. What do we know? Cielo and I are the most punctual people in Pinas.
All throughout Father Ed has that light, knowing, engaging, positive aura. He was just taking it all in, with a smile.
The Road to Emmaus began, and 14 strangers, young and old, married and single, widowed, separated, a guy who was dropped off by his mother at Tagaytay for being a "bum", we were together for a day and a half for a different kind of journey.
****
Later on when we would have coffee with Father, Tita Vickie and Carmina at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Father Ed was all the more makulit as he shared his insights on the retreat participants. We roared hilariously with laughter, especially when he would join in on our teasing Tita Vickie for being reluctant to cry and shed tears in front of others, for fear of not being in control. You see, the sosyals don’t cry out in public unabashedly. (I think you can not make singhot and bawl like you’re gasping for breath or something- Don’t worry Fr. Ed, Tita Vickie has read this already).
I was also surprised how the retreat became a showcase of Father Ed’s ability to do powerpoint, complemented by downloaded music files of religious songs, or songs like, “Dance with the Father”, and very nice renditions of contemporary songs (Bryan Adams' I Do It For You, for instance) which I saw in a different light. Father Ed had a Sony Vaio laptop, Sony digicam and his own set of amplifiers (or subwoofer). He is a one-man show- he saves more money for the church that way, he said. In spite of new technologies aiding him in the retreat, it did not hinder us from grasping the message he wanted to convey.
***
Luke 24:13-35
We began the retreat with the reading on the Walk to Emmaus. What a different way of interpreting the Bible story. Father Ed made us read one line each, then he began to draw on the board about the scene, the people, the feelings in the story. More and more, as the scene became more visual, the Bible showed how Jesus is a great leader in this story. When Jesus made the men he was walking with feel comfortable, and then they began opening up to him, the turnaround of how he was able to win their trust, then earned him the right to say, “How foolish you are!” It struck a chord. You can’t make people follow you just because of your authority. And how sometimes you can be like that fool, over and over again, in different situations, and yet having the same feeling. We fall, we sin, but if we continue to grow and invite God to be in our house, we can move on to become stronger in our faith, and in resisting being back in Jerusalem and begin our Walk to Emmaus, our walk with the Lord.
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The biggest surprise was taking the Selection Test. We were put under pressure to reveal based on our consciousness, memories of our childhood- what we remember between the ages of 0 to 5, how our parents related as adults, as parents, how we remember our grandparents. This test would reveal what kind of people we would automatically be attracted to, and how the influence of our parents would pre-determine the kind of adult we would become. This forced us to recall very personally our own past. I was blown away at how this personal information made me understand how I role played in my relationships.
I remember my mother as an adult as being “young, vibrant and had a life of her own”. Think this is who I’m predisposed to be? Nah. I am my father’s daughter. I would, however, get attracted to this type of personality, according to psychogenetics. This is my inner mate. Subconsciously I would get attracted to this type of person who would be immersed in his own set of activities, somebody who is strong and confident about his place in the world.
(That is why younger and less assertive men do not appeal to me, I said to myself. That is why when Flor set me up with a blind date with a younger man who was wearing a tie, I kicked her heel under the table and forced her to stay with us throughout the dinner. A-ha.)
The real problem though, is now that I know my father’s image is implanted in me, what do I do? What can I do to change or improve the situation? So that when I deal with my relationships, there would be harmony, and the relationship would grow stronger instead of drifting apart? The keyword is IMPRINTING. This means we have to undergo a role-playing session when others act out for us our life before, and how we’d want to change it.
Fr. Ed’s message is simple; we should learn how best we can protect the Filipino family by trying to understand how we can become better parents. We are better parents by first having a strong relationship with our husband/wife, nurtured by love, and with this, trying to provide the best environment for a child to grow up in. As singles, we can do this by trying to learn more about our boyfriend/girlfriend’s families, and in this manner we can understand each other’s predisposition, and learn together how to interact better with each other. This takes work, practice, commitment and God’s grace.
To learn more about Fr. Ed Fugoso’s psychogenetics retreat, or to volunteer as Fr. Ed’s back-up driver, redo his retreat costing (hindi ba lugi negosyo Father?),be his co-facilitator, set-up his audio visuals, send out CD copies of his retreat song selections, moderate his yahoo group-or even set up a website for his mission, update his joke collection, pray for more people to attend his retreats and share in this mission, or to volunteer to be teased when he agrees to officiate in your wedding ceremony, please contact 0917-541 4330 or send him an email: edfugoso2002@yahoo.com.
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